


Maybe we're already defeated

by JaneyLainey



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22526890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneyLainey/pseuds/JaneyLainey
Summary: After Crait, Rey of Jakku  fights valiantly to keep Ben Solo out of her mind. Kylo Ren waits ever so patiently for her to fail. Because there are truths they both need to own, a destiny they must share and a growing darkness they can only face together.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Other than the fate of one tall, gentle, understanding man in a good boy sweater, my other huge complaint post-TROS was the (mis) use of the Force Bond. So in my universe they will be lots of, you know, actual talking. 
> 
> Because I think it's what Rian Johnson would have wanted. 
> 
> Some scenes reworked from TROS but other elements will diverge entirely as we go. Rated Teen for now but liable to ~change ;)

The landscape glowed a soft auburn, the pinky fields around her awash with the evening light. Rey breathed in the tranquil air and drank in the sights of the festival. The groups of families and collections of younglings caused a familiar dull twinge ache in her chest but it was relatively faint. In honesty, Rey felt the most contented, the most anchored she had in a long time. Since...

 _Ahch-To_ her mind hissed. _Crackling Fire. Bare Hands. His eyes._

  
_No!_ She stamped out her traitorous thoughts, angry frustration pricking her eyes. She would not think of him. Her belonging was here. With her friends. With the resistance.And yet...

  
Since Crait, the turmoil had been relentless. When she had closed the hangar on his broken crouch and his imploring, reproachful gaze she had forcefully tried to shut him off, to sever the connection altogether. To excise him from her completely. Even as she had attempted it she knew it wouldn’t be as straightforward as that. But she was not prepared for this. The way the Force fought against her incessantly, it whined and groaned at the edges of her thoughts and when she tried to wield it, meld it to her will, it was duller and clumsier than she had known it before. Reluctant. Begrudging. 

  
Sometimes the whining transformed into a growl, then a roar, until finally it was a raw, screeching howl. These had been the hardest moments of the last several months. When it took all of her strength to hold the door of the bond bodily shut against what felt like another inherent part of her, pushing with equal strength from other side, clawing at the insides of her mind. 

  
It wasn’t a surprise then that there had been lapses but she still felt furious anger at her weakness whenever he sprang back, pulled so easily into her presence – like water through a cracked dam— every moment when her hold lessened ever so slightly. 

  
He appeared in flashes. Agonising seconds as she breathed in and steeled herself and regained her strength. Then she would throw herself once again on the connection, smothering it, suffocating the force, the will of it, until it struggled only weakly beneath the depths of her consciousness. 

  
He was always expectant regardless. Despite the sporadic operation of the bond— the ebb and flow of her clamp upon it – he was always ready, eager almost. His face _(mask)_ would point resolutely towards her as if he knew which direction she would appear from. It was if he was constantly waiting, in a state of high anticipation, for their next interaction. It unnerved her deeply. He had the whole galaxy at his command. Why then should he be so preoccupied with her? A scavenger, a nothing from nobodies. _But not to me..._

  
_Enough_ , she thought, viciously forcing her mind back to her current surroundings. Finn and Poe were laughing together a short distance away. Rey eyed the way Poe's hand brushed Finn's arm and smiled indulgently. Finn was grinning with shining eyes, leaning close to Poe. They looked so right together, two pieces that fit. She felt a reflection of their happiness ripple through her. _But it isn’t yours_ her mind whispered. _Your belonging lies elsewhere..._

  
Rey growled. _Stop_. Why could she not keep her mind from betraying her, straying into territory she knew was all too dangerous? Every slip risked a connection, and she did not want him here, not now. 

  
Too late she noticed the woman approaching her with a string of beads. She retracted her grimace apologetically. The woman regarded her suspiciously, then at Rey's small smile inclined her head and offered the beads with an outstretched hand. Rey ducked her head, allowing the simple baubles to slip onto her neck. The pale red spheres hung on a simple string with a straw talisman attached which sat low on her chest.

From the little she knew of this planet she understood it was a sign of fertility, prosperity, family. She accepted it gladly. The ache in her chest was back, a heat in her cheeks, a slight pounding in her head. _But I have found a family_ she insisted to her yearning heart. _I have found the belonging._

 _‘Not behind you but ahead_ ', those were the words of Maz Kunata. What else could she have referred to but this? 

_She gave you other words too._ The turncoat whisper in her mind was back. _'They’re not coming back...but there's someone else who still could_.'

  
Except he hadn’t. She had stood on the precipice with him and he had chosen to jump, fling himself headlong into the darkness she so hoped he could be pulled from. And he had done it with Ben Solo’s eyes she thought miserably. 

  
She sighed wearily. Even on this beautiful planet, in the middle of this joyous celebration the conflict raged within her. And who could she talk to about it? The Force clearly had a cruel sense of humour.

  
She looked out at the horizon, the spectacle of the setting sun as it inked the sky with it’s final hues. She waded into her sense of gratitude and dis-belief at all she had seen since leaving Jakku. Her joy to no longer be manifesting the days of her parents' departure on the wall of the AT-AT. _You count days for someone else now._

  
Then she felt it. Too late, too late she grappled to regain control. But it was a plead with the Force, not a demand _. Not now, please, not now. Not again._ It only sighed with release in response. It curled its way through her defeated concentration and now the air, the sound around her was vacuuming. With a slight tug and a faint ripple he was there.

***

  
Like always, he felt it before it happened. Kylo was attuned to it now, part of his mind constantly aware of the fluctuations in the bond. It was barely an effort anymore, hardly a distraction from the rest of his day. He had grown almost academic in his fascination with it.

 _It was getting stronger_ he thought, perhaps even in direct correlation to how she tried to resist it. Except for that one night, since Crait he had only been gifted mere moments at a time in her presence but the lapses were getting more frequent. 

  
It was also apparent that since they had touched hands they could reliably manifest physically around eachother and _oh by the force_ the things that had made him consider. _What her hair would feel like under his fingertips, how he longed sometimes to slightly correct her grip on her saber blade, the taste of the perspiration he often glimpsed on the juncture of her neck when he broke though during one of her training sessions_.

  
There was a lot of space now he found in his mind for such thoughts in the emptiness, the quiet Snoke had left behind. He rifled a hand through his hair before pulling his mask on, pulling himself up to his full height, sucking in a sharp breath and...

  
They were connected. On this occasion, he wasted no time.

  
***  
'Rey. There you are'

She flinched at his voice. Always her name spoken like that. Falling softly from his mouth, too like a promise, too like a caress. Even through the wretched mask. It made her think of the snow on his eyelashes the first time they crossed sabers. 

She huffed, irritated, insolent, exhausted. 'Can I not be rid of you?' 

  
He regarded her steadily from behind metal. 'You know I’m not doing this, Rey.’ _Force did he always have to be so kriffing calm with her?_

  
'Doesn't the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy have better things to do than wait around to torment a nobody jedi girl?' she hissed, riled.

  
He cocked his head slightly but again that beat of stillness before his response. He was always in control now, always assured, waiting for her temper to burn itself out, give her away. It had been easier before – when the seconds were filled only with his contemptuous, furious, hurt glare. But since that night...well it wasn’t like that now and she hated it.

  
'I'm confident my priorities are correct' he inclined his shoulders slightly. He had shrugged. _Kylo kriffing Ren had actually shrugged at her._ She could merely gape.

  
'Although' he continued smoothly into her silence 'I think I’ve made it very clear how I would have valued your input on the leadership of the galaxy. And that’s not something I’d say about a nobody' 

  
_‘Not to me.’_ whispered through her mind again. _Damn him._

  
'Back in the mask I see. Don’t you get tired of hiding? I can see through the cracks – you’re haunted by your crimes' she hit back viciously, a blow aimed to hurt, the next step in this violent dance of theirs. 

  
'Snoke's dead but even without the voices you can’t sleep. Just a puppet lost without it’s strings.’

  
It was cruel she knew. And it had wounded him. She could see it in the clenching of his fists, the ridigity of his posture as he imposed down on her from his terrific height. _Yes_ , she thought, _be angry. Fight back. Strike me. Give me a reason to light my saber._

  
But he didn’t. After a few moments of raw silence, the force around him vibrating dangerously with barely disguised rage, his hands relaxed and he stood back from her slightly. Then . _..oh Stars no._..he reached up his hands and pulled off the mask. 

  
_Error. Mistake. Warning. Retreat._ Her brain flared with alarm as his pale features and dark mop of hair emerged. It had been some time since he had been uncovered before her and she felt again that same wave of unwelcome something as she had in that interrogation room the first time she encountered him. 

  
His _(her)_ scar had healed further but still stood out red against his ivory skin, dissecting the summit of his high cheekbone and his eyes. His eyes were as dark and hypnotic as ever. A beacon of emotion in the impassive wasteland of his composed face. 

  
And they were staring at her intensely now, those deep icons.

  
'We can't hide, Rey. Not from each other.’

  
Her breath left her – whistling out of her chest like wind from sails. She wished he would put the helmet back. It was ludricrous, banal, ridiculous compared to the sincerity of his face. Even more she wished for her own mask, sure as she was of the emotion telegraphed in her own eyes.

  
Once again he took the ground her speechlessness surrendered 'But it seems you can still lie to yourself'

  
'I am not...'

  
'You knew what you wanted.' he interrupted 'Why didn’t you take it?' 

  
His tone wasn’t accusatory. It was even only mildly curious like he already knew the answer, as if it was etched into her soul, if he had read it on the touch of her palm.

  
She felt the heat spill out over her face. She contorted her face into a grimace. 'Why didn’t you end this when you had the chance? Run me through when I was on my knees before you?' 

  
He only looked at her, patient and indulgently. A slight curve picked up the ends of his lips but he made no reply as if it wasn’t a question that deserved a response.

  
_‘It is you who has come closest to a fatal blow, Scavenger_.’ His voice sounded in her head.   
_Pull back, pull back_ her mind urged at the deepening of the connection. 

  
‘Rey’ he spoke now. Her name again. And his eyes, his eyes were so soft now, ‘I do not wish you dead.’

  
'And I do not wish for whatever you would offer me.’ She meant it to come out fierce and certain – almost a growl, but her voice faltered as she spoke. A bone- aching sorrow she had tried so hard to suppress rang hollow through the sentiment. 

  
Rey summoned thoughts of Finn, Poe, the Resistance, her found family and shoved them savagely towards him through the Force.

  
_‘I belong’_ she thought. _‘I am not alone.’_

  
The muscle under his left eye twitched as a storm gathered on his face. His eyebrows knitted together like dark clouds. _‘My words.’_ his thoughts crackled _‘Mine. Mine.’_

  
She could feel his temper flare and beneath it a searing hurt. He stalked forward with wild eyes.He bore down on her. _And kriff._ Her heart pounded and her mind raced: _open fire, island breeze, salt tears, and loneliness, oh the loneliness_ and then _Ben, Ben_.

  
His eyes caught on her necklace, lingering on the talisman in the hollow of her chest. He seemed to ponder it for a moment, turning its meaning over in his mind. 

  
'So is this the symbol of what you wish for now, Rey?' it was a brutal whisper, so close to her ear. She could feel his breath, the heat of it. 

  
‘Your wildest dreams reduced to straw? The things I would have given you, Rey. The things we could have together.' 

  
She waited, tensed, teetering on the edge of this moment. She drew her face into the beginning of a snarl. And then his hand shot out and snatched the necklace bodily from her. She released, roaring as he pulled back. 

  
She held him in a momentary gaze of primal anger and then ripped the connection, slamming him out, back into the cold isolation of his ship.  
As he disappeared she heard one more thought trickle through the bond.

  
_'Come and take it, Rey. I’ll be waiting.’_


	2. Blurred Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo collapses to his knees. His fingers and hands shake from the rage, the adrenaline still coursing through him, high on the darkness. But now through the delirium, the wave he is suppressing starts to flood him in torrents. He feels a sharp, cold, keening pain that leaves him breathless. The voice in his head is howling, repeatedly whispering _'She must really be dead. She is gone. We killed her.' _He tries to muffle it, suffocate it. _The past is already dead _, he repeats in echo. His lips are salted by tears he cannot stem. He is bewildered by them.____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These characters are obviously not mine, they just act out this story in my head. 
> 
> 'There is so much space between us, Baby we're already defeated, **and everything changed me' **\- Love in the Dark, Adele****

When Kylo finds himself again alone on the other side of the door Rey has poured from her mind into the bond, he palms the necklace in his hands for long, languid moments. He half expects it to fade away. Another memento of an affection he will never secure, a soul he will surely only maim, a person he knows he will never deserve. But it stays tangible and weighty between his fingers and part of his heart gives quiet thanks to the Force.

_Find her! Go to her! Bring her home!_ something urges him, but he resists. He knows he holds a clue – a breadcrumb—that could lead him to her. His mouth is dry and aching for a real breath of her atmosphere, but he does not physically seek her out. _Not yet._

Besides he told her he would be waiting and if there is just one rule in his existence he has followed it is that he does not lie to Rey.

_The galaxy is mine; I have time, I have patience_ he placates his baser self. When he knows her as he does, can see _every facet_ of her spirit, of what significance is this temporal concealment? He chooses to indulge her delusion that it will keep them apart. He know it will not. Not forever. Not even for long.

For reasons he does _not_ understand, does not probe, he takes to wearing his stolen trophy under his tunic, flat to his skin. The beads rub against him as he strides the corridors of the Imperial Fleet. During training bouts, the proof of his exertion drenches the straw pendant as it trembles along to the beating of his furious heart.

M _y black heart,_ he thinks. _I_ _will pollute and corrupt it, this unworthy symbol of her desire._ He tries to construct the intent solidly and with purpose. A callous thought – worthy of Snoke's throne – but it is ill-worn and weakly crafted round the edges. The only voice spinning whispers in his mind now is his own.

Sometimes the emptiness, the quiet, weighs on him. He has realised belatedly that Rey's voice had broken the hold of Snoke's. When she had pushed into his mind all those months ago, it had welcomed her greedily, even entreated her to occupy every crevice. The inside of his skull had burned with the purifying fire of her light, igniting the long unchallenged darkness. It had been torture. It had been _glorious_.

But then he had killed Snoke. _To be free_ he tells himself. Not a price for her freedom. Not retribution for his blasphemy against her. But then she had surrendered Snoke’s place by his side, in his mind and instead retreated from him completely. It has left him...untethered. _'A puppet lost without its strings'_ she had said.

And Rey _– of course_ – was right.

He had believed in the throne room that he could achieve the new order he offered; that she so cruelly threw back. But in the gray left behind by two counter-opposed dreams of belonging, Kylo Ren still feels only like a child in a mask. And both his fathers are dead.

He has let old things die. But he cannot seem to escape being haunted by them.

Underneath the cracks in his mask, dangerous schisms in his very self are starting to reveal far more than he dares admit. He senses that that those around him perceive a change in him. Not least the Knights. _Hux, suspects too, his eyes are on you_ he cautions himself.

On the throne, somehow treachery feels closer than ever. He can’t afford excuses for disloyalty. _Force give me the strength to survive this._ He frowns at this other weakling voice that has begun to seep into the new solitude of his thoughts. He attempts to shake it away; is unable to succeed. Sometimes when he is ill-disciplined he hears it add _You chose correctly, Rey. Never come here. Save yourself._

He knows it is Ben Solo's voice. Because – _of course_ –

_'Ben, I’ll help you.’_

_'You underestimate Ben Solo. It will be your downfall'_

_'Ben, please don’t go this way'_

And then once more as a reprieve, the oasis in the desert. The last time _, that_ night _'Please, Ben, please...Ben, stay.’_

She hasn’t uttered the syllable of his birthright since. She gives him no name now.

***

It has been 4 standard weeks since their words on Pasaana when he billows into a security briefing to an update on the Resistance. Not one he had asked for, he notes with a pout of annoyance.

Hux and Pryde are already stood at the large table, a holoscreen between them. They stand to attention and salute when he enters but through narrow eyes behind his mask, Kylo senses insolence in the gesture.

'Supreme Leader.' They greet him.

'What is _so_ important, Generals, that you see fit to interrupt my day so abruptly?' he demands, crackling, force hissing. The modulator aids the organic menace of his voice.

Hux's eyes and fingers twitch. Pryde fully flinches and behind him Kylo is aware of an actual whimper escape an underling officer. _And I’m only getting started_ he muses wickedly. He thinks if he hadn’t spent the last seven years forgetting how to smile he would do so now. He relaxes into the tangible fear he provokes. Fear is safe, fear is power. And now it clouds the room, swirling thickly.

Snoke, with his withered body, had always been an insidious threat. Kylo Ren is immediate, visceral. And now there is no one to restrain him. No one to hold the leash.

'Sir, it’s the Resistance' opens Pryde, overly-confident; expectant of praise. 'We've detected some... _activity._ It seems the Resistance are rebuilding their supplies.’

Kylo just stares at him. 'And you thought to _summon_ your _Supreme Leader for this_? After the state we – _I_ – reduced them to on Crait, what else would they attempt to do? Even if they were saddled with a General as useless, as incompetent, as _insignificant_ as _you_ , Pryde' _and they are not_ , Solo's voice adds 'this would an obvious strategy!'

Pryde's face looks like it breaks with terror. He resists an instinctive cower. _Oh, Kylo is enjoying this._

'It's the nature of the supplies, Sir' Hux jumps in. As always he is less affected, the worst of Ren’s rage rolling off his oily personage. How Kylo despises him. How he longs to dispatch him for good. _Not with a saber,_ he considers, _not with the force._ For Hux, he thinks he will use his bare hands.

'It seems they have acquired some first grade military weaponry. In fact, Supreme Leader, it appears to be the same sonic missiles you ordered us to decommission.’

_Kriff._ Kylo thinks he feels his heart stutter. Hux must sense his hesitation because a smug sneer starts to trace his face. Kylo is grateful for the mask hiding his features. Sweat is beginning to prickle out across his skin, his eyes are wide and darting. Panic grips his chest, and under the rage that seeps into him - almost like breathing - from the dark side, a cold sharp pain that he squelches, crushes until later. He blinks away the burning at the corner of his eyes. _Not now. He will not think this now_.

Hux looks so unbearably, so loathsomely knowing. Kylo longs to take the red beam of his saber to that triumphant expression. He leans into the darkness flowing into him, draws sustenance from it.

One, silent, shuddering breath and he straightens and takes a single, deliberate, measured step towards Hux. The sound of his boot hitting the floor reverberates around the space. His voice is low, an electric spiky whisper 'And what use would they be, if as I _know_ you will have ensured, General Hux' – he practically spits the name 'you had properly disposed of them?'

Hux’s smug features slide off his face. He stammers 'Well, Sir, of course, Supreme Leader I did but it seems – '

Kylo gives him no time to finish. Hux is thrown violently the length of the room by invisible hands. A fraction later, the saber, called like a reflex into Kylo’s hand by the muscle memory of his rage, fills the space with a dull red glow. Hux’s face tinges grey-pink, a ugly line of contusion runs his features from its reflection on his skin. The heat of it singes the down of his cheek, his eyelashes. Kylo holds it there, inches from his skull.

'I take from your silence, that you have failed me yet again. Which means the missiles are operational does it not?’ There is no answer; just the rapid fluttering of Hux’s eyelids as he stares up at Ren in terror. 

Kylo roars. ‘YOU UNWORTHY, USELESS SCUM!’ He pivots bringing his blade down violently through the middle of the conference table, severing the holoscreen in a fire of sparks. ‘LEAVE ME!’ Both Hux and Pryde are shoved vehemently towards the door, picked up by a wind and tossed like ragdolls, their limbs flailing.

When the door has slammed shut behind them and he is assured of privacy, Kylo collapses to his knees. His fingers and hands shake from the rage, the adrenaline still coursing through him, high on the darkness. But now through the delirium, the wave he is suppressing starts to flood him in torrents. He feels a sharp, cold keening, pain that leaves him breathless. The voice in his head is howling, repeatedly whispering ' _She must really be dead_. _She is gone. We killed her.'_ He tries to muffle it, suffocate it. Th _e past is already dead,_ he repeats in echo _._ His lips are salted by tears he cannot stem. He is bewildered by them.

If what Hux says is true, her needs no other proof. Such malevolent weapons as these, have never been in the armoury of the Resistance before –by her intention. Though his mother is a general, she is princess still. He knows as surely as he knows that she would never welcome him home again that no ends would justify these means to her. _Not the razing of entire cities, entire fleets._

He sits for a long time, turning over his pain, feeling it, sizing it. After a while a calmness comes over him. He centres himself on his purpose, on his future, his destiny. He will think no more on the dead. Besides, this situation will have to be handled. There can be no possibility of allowing the ragtag bunch of rebel traitors to use their newly acquired capability. He thinks of Rey, still secreted away with them - every day of her enstrangment from him fresh scorn upon his vision of their shared future. His heart squeezes ominously and he traces the necklace still upon his chest. _Soon,_ he thinks, _soon._

He knows what he must do.

When Hux and Pryde reappear, summoned by his comms message he offers mercy: 'You are clearly as incapable as your friend here, Hux, but I will overlook it. _This time,_ General.’

'You are always so _generous_ , Supreme Leader' Hux chokes out in a whisper that borders a hiss.

'I want the situation monitored.’

'Of course, Sir' Pryde cuts in, obsequiously. Kylo resists the urge to roll his eyes _(and back hand this kriffing idiot across the face_ ). 'And we shall form a plan of military action to respond'

'No.’ Kylo bites 'Resources are needed elsewhere. We have a whole galaxy to tend, do not forget that. I will not waste precious time on unnecessary belligerent missions.’ 

There is silence. Now it is their turn to stare at him.

'Have I made myself clear?'

He takes the complete absence of response, of sound, as assent.

'Good. However, there is a matter of priority to the empire you can act on. I want a taskforce assembled to examine and rout forced labour practices throughout the galaxy. Starting with the Outer Rim.’

Now they are gaping. He understands. What no one expected _– least of all him –_ was which part of his repressed former persona would come so readily to the fore without Snope’s needling. While it is Ben Solo's voice he hears— _dreads_ —more frequently now, it is the Organa in him that has started to take residence in the strategic workings of his mind.

He strides out of the boardroom, pausing only briefly at the door.

'Oh, and Hux? Secure Unkar Plutt of Jakku as the first defendant. Bring him to me for questioning.’

Under his helmet, Kylo enigmatically almost smiles for the second time in one day. ‘ _So, Rey what will you do now?’_

***

Rey is troubled. She is not sleeping as she should be and for much of her waking hours a dull, insistent pain hammers at her temples. _If you’re doing this..._ she thinks darkly. But she knows – _of course_ – that he isn’t. It’s just that sometimes it is _so_ like someone knocking on that door in her mind.

And there is the guilty worry that gnaws at her stomach. She let it go too far on Pasaana. When he had taken her necklace she had almost sliced his hand clean away with her blue blade as he retreated with the unearned trinket. But fury was not all she felt.

_You know what it was._ This un-loyal other voice of hers won’t let her have any peace.

'Who's side are you on?' she grumbles. _Yours_ it whispers. ‘His’ she hisses back. _Is there a difference?_ _Kriff_ , but this was intolerable. That face of his, so close to her, the flicker of his whisper, it had done _something_ to her insides. She won’t give more than that, not even in thought. _Not yet._

The trouble is, it’s a clue that necklace. It could lead him directly to her and her friends. To the last vestiges of the Resistance. The last hope for freedom in the galaxy. For the first few days after the bond, she could hardly eat, nauseous with anxiety, expecting at any second to see a transport fleet led by a TIE Silencer.

After she had shoved him away - forcibly pulled herself back from the black hole of his force signature - she had insisted almost immediately that they leave Pasaana. But they are still perilously nearby – their ships and resources too depleted to permit a true re-location. She knows if he were to come as far as he can with the beads as his guide he would be more than able to find her. 

Poe had demanded a reason for such a hasty retreat but she had none to give. Finn had looked at her strangely from the corner of his eye but said nothing. She could feel their trust and loyalty through the force. They acted on her word without complaint. _Oh if they knew._ It made her sick.

But no dark shadows had passed overhead. After the first couple of standard weeks the terror had left only the waves of guilt behind in its stead. _Are you disappointed?_ the voice chides _That he has not come for you?_

Still. She hates feeling that she is at is mercy, her fate to be decided by the whim of his temper, her life on the knife edge of whether it is Ben or Kylo who reigns supreme in each moment. _That is all it would take_ , she tells herself. One second of The Jedi Killer believing the legend of The Last Jedi and they will all be dead. Hunted down and destroyed all for a kriffing string of beads. And to never know at what moment he might strike the final blow, so inscrutable as he is, so impenetrable. _It seems you can still lie to yourself_ the traitorous voice parrots him in her head: _‘I do not wish you dead.’_

A vivid memory of the Starkiller base rises up to make a mockery of her thoughts. How easily she had seen into him then, how fluidly they would meld even now if she were to concede: _'You. You're afraid. That you’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader.’_

She tries to absorb herself in base life. But this too feels strange, off tempo. Perhaps it is Leia, she thinks. _Perhaps it is me, corrupting, polluting._ Leia has still not fully recovered, is semi-reclusive, often semi-conscious. The Generals in her stead are... different. Ruthless perhaps. Certainly narrow-minded. She tries not to notice, tries not to critique, tries to keep her faith. The knocking continues...

It is three standard weeks since she saw _him, his incessant blazing eyes, his alluring dangerous voice,_ when she overhears a discussion between Finn and Poe that is the beginning of some undoing. It weakens her certainty; strengthens the traitorous thoughts, cracks open the door.

'But where did they come from, Poe?' Finn has him backed into a wall in a remote corridor of the base. He clearly thinks they are alone. His hands are on Poe’s shoulders, gripping gently but earnestly, insistently. But it’s his face that makes Rey stop and listen, careful not to be detected. She has no wish to spy on the love of others but Finn looks stricken. He is worried, frightened even.

'I don’t know, Finn. You know I'd tell you if I could. Generals aren’t saying much. They acquired them a month ago, a generous gift they said. Anonymous supporter’

Finn's shaking his head now. 'I don’t understand. But they're _First Order_ weapons. They must know that. How did they get them? From where?'

Poe is frustrated, tries to reach for Finn's face to pull him in, placate him, but he pulls back just out of reach.

'Do you know what they are, Poe? Do you? They’re _supersonic missiles._ With a pretty big blast radius as well by the looks of it. What the _fuck_ are we doing with them?'

Poe swallows heavily. Uncertainty shows in his face now too, though he tries to cover it over.

'Honey, Finn, I don’t know. I don’t. But we’re going to be OK, I promise. I'm sure Command know what they’re doing. I’m here. I got you.’ They kiss, clinging to each, loosing themselves in their togetherness, washing everything else away.

Rey reels, stumbles away. The ground beneath her feels as if it is crumbling. She has drawn so many red lines in her time here with the Resistance. Since Crait, she has tried to build up a certainty, a belief in the absolute separation of light and the dark. She had doused, shrouded herself in it as she stood over Kylo – _Ben’s_ – prone body in the Throne Room.

But now the Resistance is welcoming the weapons of the First Order. The lines are blurring, and it makes her ache, twists her insides. There is a sharp cold wrenching in her heart, like someone has plunged a knife of ice through her.

There is no-one for _her_ to turn to, to soothe this away, explain this to her. _But there is...haven’t you denied yourself enough?_

And still the pounding in her head. But it’s not coming from behind the door of the bond, she is certain now. Because the door is _creaking,_ it groans on its hinge as she feels the seal start to fail.

She retreats to her room and stays there. For five days she stays there, unsure, un-nerved. Unable to face anyone when she doesn't know what to say, where to start. Perhaps she should go to Luke but how can she face his ghost with _him_ so close by in her mind? Perhaps she should go to Leia but how would she survive if she knew what the Resistance intended now?

_There is someone..._

_No,_ she insists _not after last time._ But she knows even as she thinks it that it is inevitable. She will succumb to her weakness. She can already begin to feel his presence pulsing just _there_ on the other side. The door is thinning out, splintering, until it is nothing more than a web spun of sheer defiance.

She closes her eyes. If only she can sleep before her grip slips altogether. If only she can hold him at bay until dawn illuminates her eyelids. But it is inexorable: she shatters into a desperate dream. And there is a presence moving there in the blackness. Moving with her. In _her_.

***

Once again that night, he must forget to take off the amulet when he collapses to his narrow bed. Because it is _not_ his intention to curl up with it, pressed between chest and palm like a prayer.

As he lies there, full of the sight of _two_ sets of sorrowful eyes, he senses it, the warping, eroding of the barrier. _Just like before_. Like the last time he heard his name on her lips. _He waits._

He can feel her trembling a galaxy away across the stars; only a thin veil from his reach. There is something growing within her subconscious mind. He can feel it moving in the near-far shapes and senses of her dreams. He knows it is a darkness. He knows it is not his. He waits. For Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said last time that my complaint with TROS was the mis-use of the Force Bond but i guess it looks like I have one per chapter because I also really wanted to see more of Kylo figuring out his leadership style and what his 'new order' looks like. TLJ's exploration of the moral ambiguity of all sides in war and the military industrial complex had so much potential so here we are!
> 
> Next chapter is already underway - force bond goodness coming up (and more about _that night _they keep mentioning!)__
> 
> _  
> _Hope you enjoy - comments and kudos much appreciated. Find me on__[Tumblr](%E2%80%9Dsarcasticleaderrey.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally a sleepy force-bond and two beautiful idiots just trying to work through some stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben aren't my characters. Neither is the Star Wars Universe. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are lovely and motivational.
> 
> "The longer we ignore it all the more that we will fight" - **Love in the Dark, Adele ******

As she sleeps, she writhes. The connecting of the force bond doesn’t wake her this time. If anything, the muffling of their surrounding sounds seems to soothe her slightly in her dream state. Her breathing deepens, even as she whimpers, head thrown askew, mouth open.

He pulls himself up to sit on the edge of his bed when she appears before him. He feels the satisfaction of the force as it hums contentedly. He stretches himself, rolling his neck, feeling it soothe him, tend his weary muscles.

He indulges in this moment to watch her unseen. Without the tension that rises whenever she is awake; when she picks resolutely at the threads that bind them.

Strands of dark hair have come loose from the buns at the back of her head and hang limply round her face, damp as she sweats from her dream. Her face is flushed and shines slightly in the dim light. Her dark eyelashes flutter against her creamy skin. The swell of her rose mouth purses as she mutters wordlessly, head rolling.

He draws closer, transfixed, crouches next to her. He hovers a hand over her cheek, ghosts the movement of pushing her hair back from where it clings. But he does not touch her.

He senses it again, stronger now without anything separating them. Rey is surrounded by a dark mist, he can feel it underneath her consciousness. She is breathing it in, positively _drowning_ in it. He cannot see the exact details of her dream – _nightmare_ —but he is aware of its purpose, its feel. She is fighting it even as it swirls around, and under, and through and _in_ her. And she is so _afraid_. And what that does to him. He remembers Snoke's words: ‘ _Always that fiery spit of hope.'_

"Rey," he murmurs her name, low, close to her ear. "Rey, can you hear me?" He watches the furrowing of her brow, the movement of her lashes, the trembling of that full bottom lip.

"Rey, let go." She turns towards him in her slumber, responsive instinctively to his voice, his presence. His eyes roam her face again, the small stretch of her neck the movement exposes.

"It's OK, Rey, I’m here" her breathing grows more rapid and shallow, puffs of her warmth fanning onto his face. "Follow my voice, Rey."

She whimpers slightly, but he can feel her relaxing, falling into the flow of the smoky tendrils that wrap themselves around her, more like an embrace now. "Rey. Open your eyes. Come to me, Rey."

In her sleep, Rey drifts towards the voice. She has given into the depths of watery oblivion that press into her from all sides. She finds without her resistance, it is warm, soothing, _gentle_. And there is that presence, reassuring her, calling her. It feels familiar but her brain is fuzzy. 

She lets herself float in the inky river, no longer spluttering and she rises upwards, upwards, _there is light somewhere, up there._

When she reaches the surface, consciousness begins to breaks over her. And now she knows why she recognised the calling, the soft urging of _that_ voice. She holds herself there still, quiet.

"Wake up, Rey." He is so close to her, a secret thrill passes through her at her name. _Always her name._

"Look at me, Rey." She obeys, blinking her wide hazel eyes open, still hazy from sleep but full of something so impossibly like _relief_ , _joy_. His – above her – drink her in, greedily. There is a curve on his lips. Her mouth starts to form the shape of his name. Giddy, he sees it hang there unspoken.

Then it die on her lips as sleep recedes fully and realisation dawns. Her eyes harden and she recoils from him, frowning. He swallows down his disappointment.

"What do you think you’re doing?!"

He eyes her, the line of his mouth hardening. "Saving you from a nightmare it seems. No need to thank me."

She huffs. “Oh, _sure._ A nightmare of your making. How very _valiant_ of you.”

He looks at her tersely, there's a movement in the muscles of his face as if he is resisting rolling his eyes.

T"his really is getting quite _wearing,_ Rey. You _know_ I'm not responsible for half the things you insist on blaming me for."

“No.” she snaps. “ Only the most _monstrous_ sights of my existence!” Han Solo speared on his red blade; the fleeing remnants of the Resistance in the depths of space, exploding one by one.

He narrows his eyes with a heavy sigh. His fists are clenched as he straightens and takes a step back from her. She is surprised when he has the decency to drop his eyes from under her intense watch.

There is silence, only the sound of their heavy breathing. An intense, inexplicable wave of sadness breaks over her from him through the force.

Another moment and he lifts his head. He is towering over her now, stood at his full height as she still sits in her bed. His pale skin reflects a low blue light from a source she cannot see. She is suddenly aware of how bare she is, shivering under the light blanket and she gathers it closer to her.

He approaches her, glowing eyes, considering lips.

“You know, it’s easier if you don’t fight it, Rey.”

When she doesn’t respond, he clarifies. “The darkness. In your dreams. I can sense it. You shouldn’t fight – just flow with it.”

She lets out a little irritated, sardonic laugh “You _would_ say that. I bet _your_ dreams are just _full_ of me succumbing to the darkness.”

 _'Oh, Rey_ ,’ he thinks so she can hear ' _you have no idea.’_

He arches an eyebrow at her and purses his mouth in amusement. There is no hint of embarrassment and it is her gaze that skitters away, heat rising in her cheeks.

“I don’t have to dream it, Rey.” he makes that movement of his shoulders again. _Force, when did he start shrugging?,_ “I’ve seen it, remember?”

Her eyes grow dark. She glowers, thinking bitterly of their hands, the touch of his fingertips.

“Yeah, well you can keep _dreaming_ because it’s _not_ going to happen.”

That amused confident expression dances on his face again and _kriff,_ how she wishes it didn't cause tension low in her stomach. She shifts uncomfortably, unable to meet his eyes.

He crouches again, bringing his face level with hers. He is so close he might as well be on the bed with her.

“We'll see”.

She growls. Flashes her teeth in warning. He senses her impulse to reach for her staff. Sees it in her mind just out of reach beyond the nightstand.

“Rey...” his voice is all ominous bass. His eyes hold her gaze steadily, the dark of his irises deepening as his pupils widen fractionally. She notices his hand move unthinking towards her face before he stops himself. The traitorous voice sighs in disappointment.

“Tell me about them. The dreams. Tell me, Rey.”

She appraises him, her eyes flickering over his face.

“You know, this isn’t going to go the way you imagine. It won’t be like last time.” Her voice is inappropriately soft – almost tender – as her anger eeks away.

“No” he agrees simply, “I can see that.”

***

_(Last time he hadn't woken her for one thing. The force had connected them before either had succumbed to sleep._

_She had been crying. Her face a riverbed, marks clear where the water of tears had found its way. When his form materialised in front of her she had tried to wipe them frantically away, but she was too raw, too cracked wide...)_

***

“I’m not like them”, he urges. ‘ _Your so-called friends'_ she hears through the force.

“You can talk to me about this, Rey.”

She sighs, a weary hand wiping at her face. Exhaustion radiates off her. Exhaustion, uncertainty and _resignation_.

“Alright”, she agrees, voice small, still slightly petulant.

“It doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere for now anyway does it?” The force murmurs to her sweetly, urging, encouraging.

He tries not to look triumphant, _excited_. He rises from his crouch next to her and retreats a little back to the perch of his cot. They both sit now, facing each other across the small distance; the light-years between them.

He waits, blazing eyes never leaving her face as she begins to talk. “I can't tell where I am. Everything’s hazy. But I'm surrounded and I think.. I...I think I'm suffocating.”

He gives a small nod. _'You were'_ he thinks through the bond, _'I could sense it'._

She shivers. “And it’s so, _so_ dark. I can’t see through it. I can’t _feel_ through it somehow.”

“And?” he prompts her after a minute because she has lapsed into silence, regarding him with wrinkled brows and puzzlement in her eyes. And he _knows there's_ more.

“Rey, say it. Say it.”

“And...and...there's _something there._ With me. I can sense it moving. Close to me.”

 _‘Inside you’_ he clarifies through the bond, states her unspoken thought, the truth she won’t own to him.

She _hates_ when he does this. Her eyes narrow, as she gives him a mental shove, but she moves her head in acquiesance.

“I thought...perhaps...I thought it might be....”she trails off with a small shake off her head, looking away from him. “Nevermind.”

He reads it from her mind regardless: _'It might be you.’_

“It's not.”

Her nose scrunches, as her eyes meet his again. _‘I know’_ she thinks.

_'This darkness is all your own, fierce one'_ his thoughts reply.

It is so _very almost_ a term of endearment, that her eyes grow wide with shock. She pulls back a little, putting more cool space between her and the heat of his scrutinising eyes.

“Let it go, Rey. Accept what you were meant to be. It’ll hurt less if you _stop fighting._ ”

He keeps his voice soft and casual but his eyes give him away.

He feels her defenses spring back; sees it in the closed look that comes over her eyes; senses it in the fiery spike in her force signature.

“What like _you_? All you _are_ is pain. Pain and rage and _hatred_. I never want to be _anything like you_!”

“And yet”, he says matter of factly “you are. Cant you see? Pledging yourself to a cause that isn’t your own, to masters who will never understand you, never value you the way you deserve; fighting a part of yourself because you know they would fear it if they knew – so much so they’ve even made _you_ fear it too."

Rey leaps to her feet, apoplectic, enraged. She closes the distance in three furious steps, holds herself over him.

“Shut, up!” she spits, “You’re _wrong_! You don’t know _anything_!”

“No?” he stays seated, looking up at her snarling face with a calm, patient expression.

“So how is life with your traitorous, _hypocritical_ friends?”

There’s something in his tone that makes her pause, realisation dawning. She panics, he sees it in the way her eyes widen.

 _Kriff_ , Rey thinks, _he knows._ She wonders how far his intelligence goes: how long they have to make it out alive.

_'Did you really think we wouldn’t be keeping tabs, Rey?'_

She sinks to floor in front of him as all of her worst fears rise like bile in her throat.

“I should have known...” she mutters, half to herself, preoccupied in her own thoughts “the necklace...I _did_ think, but then...”

 _‘you never came_...' She doesn’t mean to think it – not intending him to hear – but it leaks through anyway.

“Rey,” the caress of her name in that low whisper of his pulls her back to the present, back to his face in front of her. His eyes search hers “was I supposed to?”

It is only then that she notices the unmistakeable shape under his sleep-shirt.

“Are you _sleeping_ with my fertility beads?!”

Kylo loses all composure. He stammers and flushes a deep red. For a tortuous second, his eyes seem able to rest anywhere but her face.

There’s a responding queer sensation in Rey’s chest. She pushes down a shimmer of excitement, _of hope_ and restrains her mind from analysing his demeanour any further.

Momentarily, he gathers himself.

“Given the value of the information they could yield, I’ve taken them into my personal custody – yes. You’ll be pleased to know they haven’t given up your location. _Yet.”_

 _He hasn’t looked for you_ the voice needles, _he hasn’t betrayed you_.

Rey tries not to look too relieved as she feels the knot she’s carried around for the last four weeks loosen further.

“Then what _do_ you know? There's _something_ isn’t there?”

She knows she pushing her luck, but she can’t deny herself this small testing prod at his loyalties, suddenly that much less certain to her.

He knows this is her prying into him, trying to peal back more of his shell. He allows it, gives this small inch of ground to her.

“Let’s just say, _recent_ _acquisitions_ have not gone unnoticed.’

She rocks back on her haunches slightly, as she sucks in a huge gasp before she can stifle it. Her expression is all the confirmation he needs. His eyes flash ominously.

She tries to pull it back, cover off the admission she’s unwittingly made

“I don’t know what –“

“Don't.” He halts her denial with a flat, empty glare. “Don't lie to me, Rey.”

The sadness in his eyes deepens as he watches her dourly.

“Which means, I can only assume, that there’s been a change of leadership?”

There’s so much vulnerability in his question, like he’s imploring her for something she doesn’t comprehend.

He tries to keep his voice steady, but she hears the subtle way it cracks. And suddenly her vision is blurring, her eyes watery as she beholds him. _Leia_ she thinks.

Earlier when she had raised the spectre of Han between them she thought the agony that pulsed from him was still the wounding repercussion of his savagery. But now she sees there’s even more pain buried underneath. In the part of his heart where his mother still resides.

And, _stars,_ Rey can barely keep herself afloat in the ocean of grief that begins to swell inside her, barely a tributary to his and still bursting out into the space between them.

She wants to answer, soothe the longing in his question ( _if_ _she knew how)._ But mercy is not in her gift. _Her_ loyalties are not in question. _Not tonight._

Still she rises up towards him, her arms floating listlessly in a move of comfort she does not complete.

“I can’t. I can’t tell you. I can’t talk about this with you.”

She hates how much it feels like a betrayal to deny him. Even more, she hates how much it _looks_ like one on his lips, the quiver of his eyelashes, the twitch of his brow.

They sit in silence with full, sorrowful eyes. Neither of them knows how long it is until she speaks, her courage – her certainty – failing her.

“No one knows. That I see you. About this. The bond”

 _'About us_.'

She doesn’t say any more but he understands it for the offering it is. The shadow of a promise. The Resistance won’t benefit from his candour, _not this time_. For tonight there is only this, this amalgam of two rooms and two bleeding souls. And the millions of stars it encompasses between them.

“Rey,” he whispers desperately, undone by this fragile, _precious_ truce they have brokered.

All she can hear is his voice. She is falling into his gaze: that of a lost, despairing child “has she been properly treated?”

Rey stamps on the yearning provoked for another man she thought she once saw.

“Of course.” is all she says. “Of course.”

Their peace is fractured by a knock on the door of her quarters. It shatters the weight of the air they share. The Force growls its frustration, vibrating irritably as Rey turns unnaturally from Kylo.

It is Finn, calling her through the metal; one friend reaching for another. It is enough to re-awaken her guilt. A small shame lances through her at the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy – the figurehead of their enemy – in her rooms; rousing her from forbidden dreams.

When she turns back the Lost Boy is gone. In his place, the man she fears is returned, fresh, vicious spite painted in the contours of his face.

He is retreating across the galaxy, wading back through the stars as the bond wanes. She does not stretch out to hold him with her; she does not ask him to stay.

The vision of him is flickering, less and less corporal. He leans forward into the last remaining connection. She cannot tell if he speaks or projects into her mind but his words _burn_.

“I hope they are still worth it, Rey, when you are sacrificed to their terror. Just remember, _fierce one_ , that it is no longer me who offers you the galaxy in ashes.”

He is gone. She weeps rivulets of pain; and rage; and hatred. As they stream, they bisect her face from her lashes to her jaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! 
> 
> They are dealing with a lot, poor things! But I think this might mark a change coming ;) 
> 
> As always do let me know what you think, I'm on Tumblr, come say hi!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rey gets her own back, and Ben gets a name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These beautiful baby idiots who are not mine. I thought it was going one way but they took me somewhere else. Never a dull moment! It's also turned out long so hope you enjoy!

The barrier to the bond is well and truly defunct now. Rey tries to shore it up with scavenged remnants of her disdain for Kylo Ren but the sorrowful eyes of Ben Solo hollow out her every intent.

There is a constant trickle across their connection, his presence a continuous hum in the background of her thoughts. She finds, begrudgingly, that his static dims the headaches although they are still not gone. _The dreams_ she thinks because since he woke her they have persisted. Every night without fail she finds herself again in ebony cascades that invade her lungs, her eyes, her very pores. It soaks all too readily through her skin until it is a second blood that thrums through her heated veins.

Most night she fights, thrashes and flails in it as it subsumes her. Its thickness choking in her throat, in her nostrils. But _sometimes..._ There are dreams where _his_ words float to her over the midnight ocean and she stills and relaxes, lets the currents take her whirling round the molten rapids until she is utterly swept away.

And how she _hates_ it when he is right. But the surrender always feel blissful – just as he had promised.

There are nights where her mind wanders to _his_ dreams. She is preoccupied with his ready revelation of her place in them – _succumbing to the darkness_. The thought sends a secret shiver through her that confounds all sense.

She sees him often now throughout her days. Its no longer stilted seconds but stretches of minutes of time; elongated moments when the world around her bleeds out into the edges until there is almost only them. Just him.

They do not always acknowledge each-other. It is not always possible. The bond is greedy with its new found freedom, the Force reckless without the cage of Rey’s making.

It connects them inconveniently, when they are in conversation or meditation or – _worse_ – actively engaged in the machinations of the war.

He appears like a portent raven during Poe's briefing on the weaknesses they have discovered in First Order starships; he is a treacherous summoning ghostly over Finn's shoulder as they sip caf and talk together properly for the first time in ages. Rey’s eyes flicker to him only for a second but she stays resolutely focused on those around her. His presence is only hers – she prefers to keep it that way.

Sometimes they are connected long enough to seek solitude. They can face eachother then. Often there are still few words. “How do you sleep?” he might say. “Where is your mask?” she might return.

They do not speak of the weapons. Or Leia. Or the threat of discovery that still hangs from his neck so undeniably unused.

Rey _thinks_ of all these things of course. Sometimes when her head is overflowing with a conflict that is so nearly the mirror of one she once felt in him she wanders to Leia's quarters. She sits quietly reflective by her bedside, looking for traces of the prodigal son in the sleeping face.

She curls her knees into her chest and traces patterns on the edge of the heavy bedspread woven in an traditional Alderaanian motif.

Once he appears when she is there, a phantom visitor at a hospital bed he cannot see. They gaze with meaning at each other over a mother whose son doesn’t know she’s there.

Quicker than it’s General-Princess, the Resistance is re gaining strength. There are new tip offs, new intelligence. More deliveries. Rey sees the ships arriving with their classified cargo and she thinks of him, out there in the galaxy, _somewhere_. Can he see them, even now as they arrive, these gargantuan Pandora's boxes?

She asks Poe about it but he is evasive, non-committal. _Dishonest_ her mind thinks. There are new leaders to impress, to curry favour with, to show loyalty to.

She does not begrudge him his desire for belonging. Born into the Resistance, he has more right than her to a place in this story. She understands his reluctance to answer to a nobody girl who became The Last Jedi.

Still the whispers that do reach her disquiet her further. She is sent on a reconnaissance mission to a distant corner of the galaxy, a small planet – _surely inconsequential_ she ponders with consternation.

When she lands her anonymous ship

(“Not the Falcon.” Poe had insisted. “Too recognisable. Too risky”)

she understands. The planet is festooned in First Order colours. Red and black flags hang from the streets and their insignia stares out at her through her windscreen. She is firmly in his sphere now she sees. She thinks at any moment she will see his hideous mask advancing on her from the crowds.

Her heart shrinks coldly at this fresh threat of detection but she pushes it down. The voice in her mind is emboldened, steels her courage. You _are alone here_ it reminds her _He is no danger. Not to you._ Still some deep part of her trembles – it is not death she fears from him; it is not his saber that inspires her terror.

Her fear of discovery it transpires is unwarranted. Despite the fealty, the proclamation of loyalty that screams from every lamp post and flag pole affixed above the residences, Rey can sense no great malevolence here, no evil. Beyond the landing bays of the city's port there are even very few storm troopers. She can walk calmly and unremarked through the streets.

She meanders through a market – it’s late afternoon and in the dappled light, families collect meats and vegetables for their evening meals. She watches a father and his child as they walk from stall to stall, inspecting, choosing.

When they are close to her, the youngling diverts her gaze onto Rey, aware of being observed. Rey sees a flash of what she thinks might be recognition in the small eyes and then she is tugging at her father’s sleeve, pointing.

“Look, Dada. Jedi! It’s the jedi-girl.”

Ice water pours through Rey's veins, she shakes her head apologetically at the man who’s staring frowning at her now. ' _It’s not me, I’m not her'_ she thinks at him ' _I’m no-one_ ' but it does no good. The man is advancing on her now, calling to others, gesturing.

 _Kriff._ Rey thinks. This is the worst kind of trap. To use the force now would be to give herself away but without it how is she to escape?

She turns and runs from the market, sends a stall of pink oblong fruit toppling in her haste. She ducks down an alley, then another, the clay sand staining her boots and rising in mini clouds with each footfall.

Any minute she expects to hear the modulated voice of Stormtroopers but it does not come, only humanoid feet hurrying behind here, a crowd nonetheless.

She rounds another corner, panting, sweating – her white robes smeared with dirt – and comes crashing to a halt. Her path is blocked by another group, an older man at its head. And now her pursuers have caught her up. She is surrounded.

“Stop!” the leader shouts, he has grey eyes and a sun-browned face that shows his age. He regards Rey with concern and annoyance. “ You will come with me.”

She thinks about protesting, about fighting her way out but in the Force she does not sense _harm_ per se. There are children still she notices in this crowd. She goes willingly.

He takes her by the arm and pulls her from the crowd, through more alleyways, under intricate, well constructed brickwork archways until they are alone. Her stops abruptly, turning to face her, fierceness flashing in his face.

“What are you doing here, Jedi?”

“I come in peace.” Rey says “from friends within the Resistance.”

The old man laughs. His grey eyes crinkle around the edges, and his mouth is wide and red as he chuckles.

“Friends? The Resistance is not our friend. But you already knew you were in First Order territory. Are you here to spy?”

Rey says nothing. There is no point in denying it.

“No matter, you won’t be harmed.”

“I come with the offer of help.”

“For what help do you disturb my people? You risk our families just by your presence” he scolds.

She is riled, her anger against the First Order stirring “We could help you fight for your homeland, free your planet from their control.” But even as she says it the words sound small.

“You talk of fighting.Who would you have me send to fight?”

Rey thinks of the people in the town, going quietly about their small lives.

“We just want to live peaceably, whatever other freedom you speak of is meaningless to us.”

“ You wouldn’t need to live in fear anymore.”

He scoffs at her. “ It is you who arrives with your terror, driven by a fear your own. You will leave this place. Do not come back”

He turns from her. She stays still, stunned. “GO.” He orders. Once again she runs. She finds her way beyond the town, mind racing. She knows she should go directly to her ship and leave this place before they – he – hear of her expedition and come for her, but she feels too unsettled, too unsure of what she would be returning to.

Behind the port, wooded hills climb above the settlement and it is here that she flees to, sucking in the scent of the flowers and the fresh grass, trying to clear the clouds in her head.

As she climbs she passes the last of the sinister banners, one adorned with a likeness of a mask she knows too well. She growls and on impulse thrusts herself at it, spearing it with her baton, running it through a gash upon the cracks.

Upon Jakku, life had been dominated by absolutes. They comforted you with the certain rhythm they gave to life. You would burn in the day if you did not dress correctly, freeze in the night for the same reason; you would eat commensurate to what you scavenged and what you scavenged was irrevocably yours to trade.

There are dwindling absolutes now it seems to Rey. Everything has become increasingly uncertain, increasingly grey. Friends areat one moment just allies. Enemies cast another way became your confiders. And the war that had once seemed so clear, so righteous, was daily more steeped in ambiguity.

He finds her here then, through the bond, as she stands panting in the woodland. She feels the connection vacuuming before it springs into life. He is angled away from her bent over something she cannot envisage. His eyes are closed. She watches him silently. She imagines he must know she is there but he doesn’t look, doesn’t speak.

Her eyes flicker over the dark curves of his thick eyelashes on his cheek. They flutter as he breathes above slight bruising shadows that betray his weariness. His full lips sit in their natural half pout, his face a state of repose. As always she is drawn to him, some part of her naturally forever flowing towards him.

Her feet move of their own volition, propelling her into his orbit until she finds herself mere inches from him, looking intently at the dark gloss of his hair as it curls round his ear.

She has spent all day surrounded by the spectre of his darkest self, wrestling with the ambiguity of his chosen role in the Galaxy, an ambiguity she s only just beginning to admit to.

And now he is her before her and he is never as fearsome in these moments as he should be she thinks. His too soft eyes, his smooth fresh skin, the silk of his voice always betray him before him. They betray her too in a different – significant – way.

Deep in her stomach there is a hungering for it.

She breathes heavily as she waits for him to react to her. As the seconds tick by without him doing so, she fidgets, crossing her arms across her as a seed of annoyance blossoms opening out into a raw frustration.

She makes a little impatient noise in her throat. He remains resolutely unmoved, except for a flex she marks in his jaw. She fights the desire to stamp her foot like an ill-disciplined, un-indulged child. Her fingers twitch with the urge to lace themselves through his hair and yank him _hard_ towards her.

'What are you doing?” she caves, probing petulantly, riled by his indifference to her presence.

His mouth twitches visibly with amusement “Rey”. He acknowledges her mildly but still does not open his eyes. “I'm actually in the middle of something right now”

She glares at him and huffs 'So sorry to _disturb_ you, _Supreme Leader,_ but as you are always so keen to remind me – this isn’t my doing.”

He looks at her lazily then, the curtain of his lashes parting to reveal the liquid brown of his eyes. The annoyance of her countenance falters. He straightens and turns to face her fully, the broadness of his body so nearly flush to hers so close as she is.

“Isn’t it you Jedi who are always so effusive in your praise of meditation? Perhaps I’m taking a leaf from your book. Perhaps _'The Last Jedi'_ should be flattered.”

She flinches, recoiling at the epithet on his mouth.

“Don’t...Don't call me that.”

One of his eyebrows arches, and he cocks his head “Why, Rey?”

She doesn’t answer. She tells herself it is because of what that means in this inexorable twisted mythology they share, of what his countering part must be to her Jedi.

She thinks loudly of herself on her knees before him in Snoke's throne room. Projects the heat of his saber on her neck as he held her frozen in the forest of Takodana.

He reads her and signals back a single thought. _“I told you before, you will not die by my hand, Rey”._

She knows this. It is a flimsy cover that he indulges, but is too perceptive to truly believe. His eyes impossibly soften further but he passes no comment.

“Well you’re doing it _all wrong_. Hunched like that, _so tense_.”

“Would you be my teacher, Rey?” he teases.

“I wouldn’t expect a _Sith_ like you to ever truly master it.”

“Ah is that what I am? Is that really what you think?”

“Have you forgotten you’re the apprentice of Snoke who killed his master. What do you think?”

“I think you’ll find it’s you the Galaxy holds responsible for that particularly unfortunate death. _Sith Killer_.” She draws in a sharp breath, tensing but he is smirking.

They have fallen so naturally like breathing into this push and pull between them, but it is lighter than before, the viciousness unconvincing, toothless.

She tries to let it levity flow through her, keep him distant and casual. She forms a responding tease but an earnest sadness is creeping through the marrow of her bones. “I don’t want credit for that.”

He looks baleful at her words, his eyes suddenly intent. “I’ve put a bigger target on your head, I know. But I won’t let anyone else harm you, Rey.”

 _‘Not even touch you. Not even a finger_ ’ she hears through the bond and there it is again; the low quiver in her heart.

“It’s not that. I can take care of myself. You think I’m afraid of your _pathetic_ generals? Your glorified child soldiers?” her eyes flash dangerously. “Do you know how it felt to realise what you had done?” He waits for her to continue, emotion bleeding through the hairline cracks in his stoic mask-like face.

Her voice is a urgent, violet whisper. “How it felt for you to choose me over him? It felt _transcendent_. _Euphoric._ I was so proud of you, so in awe. And then to have you fight beside me...”

Her voices trails away and he remembers the heat of her hand on his thigh, the colours of their blades slicing complementary, interwined patterns over the walls and floor of the Throne Room, cloth and armour of their shared enemies dancing around them. Belonging his mind sighs, completeness, indivisibility.

“How dare you disown your truest moment of glory?”

 _'Our glory'_ whispers her voice in his mind, an unintended shared thought. Pain squeezes inside him and she sees it in the clenching of his fists.

For the first time since Crait he stares wide-eyed into the betrayal and sorrow he had sowed in her that day. The wound is laid bare before him by her words. It rends him speechless, breathless.

The scar calls to its twin inside him and as she raises her eyes to his again hurt stares back at her.

His voice matches hers, a whisper of sincerity.

“You left Rey. You disowned it too.”

Again the force communicates what they are too afraid to voice: _'You didn’t want me. Do you know how it felt to wake up alone?'_

She frowns at the intimacy of his thoughts. In another universe she thinks he could be her lover, left in a cooling bed. 

Her anger flares and he senses some of the darkness he felt so vividly in her dreams.

“What choice did you give me? With the path you have chosen? With who you choose to be, _Kylo_?”

He had thought he would feel something when she at last gives him a name again. But it is sour in his ears, bitter acid in his soul. He takes in her sudden fury.

_Always running into rage,_ he thinks, _when I get too close._

“I know who I am, Rey. And I know you”

Her rage dies, only an empty sadness left in her voice “No. No-one does”

“But I do.”

He expects her to deny it, to push back against him, perhaps even try to rip the connection away. But she doesn’t. Just stares up at him with her wide hazel eyes, they glow auburn in the dusk light that washes over her in the evening of whatever planet she is on; reflecting in her unshed tears.

“Rey.”

She only hums absently in response.

“Where are you, Rey?”

Her eyes narrow slightly but she just shakes her head, doesn’t drop her eyes. “So you don’t know yet?”

“No. Why? I assume given the length of this conversation you’re off-base? Alone.”

She graces him with a small smile. “I was spotted earlier. I assumed by now intelligence would have re-“

As the words leave her lips, he jerks away, one gloved hand coming up to signal her to stay. Shutters slam down on his face. “What..?”

He is looking away now, “Enter.”he barks. A pause then “What is it, Hux?”

Rey takes a step back, shudders in revulsion at the thought of the pale general so close to her, even through the force.

Kylo looks similarly displeased, irritation clear on his profile. “Ah, is that so? Well? Where?” His lips purse in amusement and one eyebrow raises imperceptibly Rey thinks to anyone who hasn’t looked so long at his face.

“No. That won’t be necessary. Do nothing as of yet – keep me updated of any further sightings. That will be all.”

His face starts to turn back towards her, pivoting on his now ramrod spine and there is a strange light dancing in his eyes. Just as she thinks he will speak, subtle movement returning to his features, he freezes again.

'Why are you _still_ in my quarters, Hux? I said. You. Are. Dismissed.”

His eyes are still on her, even as he chastises the loathesome man beyond her sight. Rey considers amending her assessment of his physical terror – but still there is that softness as he looks upon her. Only her.

“I owe you congratulations then. Notify me when our new arrival is ready to be _properly greeted.”_

There is a minute more of silence between them, when all Rey can do is feel his gaze upon her, how it prickles heat across her skin. She hopes he can not see how internally she squirms, her restless insides fluttering around her ribcage.

'It’s reached me.”

The light is back in his eyes, un-suppressed amusement as she flushes uncomfortably.

“I see. But no-one is coming I take it?” 

He gives one small shake of his head. “What do they want sending you all the way out there?” He doesn’t expect an answer, knows she wouldn’t give one. His expression has grown somewhat distant as he ponders.

“And alone.” He continues darkly “Right into the vipers' nest.”

Rey bristles at the insinuation. “I told you. I can take care of myself.”

He searches her face placatingly. _'I know'_ he projects into her mind, ' _You are a force all your own, fierce Rey'_

“Besides,” Rey continues, “there isn’t much threat here is there? You’ve got hardly any military out here.”

“No need. They pay their taxes. They don’t cause trouble. Security and freedom are what they’re owed.”

“Freedom?” Rey questions incredulously. ‘There is no freedom in the First Order’ she thinks, 'There is no peace only passion'

“What have you found there, Rey? How would you describe it?”

She gives no answer at first. She has none. She only thinks of the families in the market; the rebuke of the leader in the interrogation room _“There is no war here. Would you bring it upon us?”_

 _“_ I think”, she says at last “that neither of us are what others expected.” The words ring out into the quiet and hang there.

“Who is arriving?” she abruptly changes the subject. They have crossed a boundary now she knows, shared insights from their opposing sides, stepped into a no-man's land they didn’t know existed. She pushes into it further.

“You’ll find out soon enough. I’m looking forward to it. I think you’ll know then what you have to do.”

 _Go to him_ , that secret voice of hers suggests, _join him_.

As always she pushes it away.

“You still think I’ll take your hand when you offer again.” she states.

 _‘I know you will, Rey'_ he sounds in her head.

It is still there, held limply by his side between them, the seams along his gloved fingers catching dim pinpoints of twilight. Something dangerous is sparking in her belly, it dares her forward, the lick of unburning flames at the edges of heart. She raises her hand slightly, unseen by him.

Eyes still locked she stretches her fingers towards him, just, just enough. Inch by inch until, until they graze, rough smoothness of the leather delighting her fingertips. And the bond erupts.

Kylo starts, sudden shock on his face. His eyes fly to where her fingers brush so lightly against his encased own. And then they are everywhere – his eyes. Darting over her lips and her hair and her body as a energy flows through them. And she is not afraid. She feels it too and her eyes do the same, roving, drinking him in with that same greed she felt before.

And then behind him, suddenly, is everything. As if— in one frantic heartbeat, one charged touch – she has stepped across the galaxy into the very room with him. The bond has blossomed and opened to let her in, pull her closer.

She sees the narrow cot in one corner, his lightsaber almost touching his pillow. Behind him hang training robes next to a small desk. She takes in the holopads – _so many_ – the scrolls of flimsiplast, the calligraphy set. One look at his face and she knows it’s the same for him, her surroundings suddenly as real as his own.

Then her eyes stop, halted. He is still lost in this new power of the bond, entranced by the level of connection, absorbed by unpuzzling it. He doesn’t notice how her eyes pull wide, how her mouth curls in revulsion weighted down by a fresh sorrow.

She knows now why he meditates in that position, knows now what it is he is hunching over. On a blank stand – no pedestal—she thinks in horror is a melted black mask, deformed and decrepit. She doesn’t need to look any closer to know a wizened skull still resides inside.

Her mind is made in an instant. She looks at his face, commits every inch of it to her mind. Glances once at her talisman still boldly there upon his chest and stretches our her other hand, one still in its place pressed fingers' length to his.

The movement pulls him from his reverie, his eyes searching hers questioningly. And stars they are so deep, so earnest, so _moved_ by a simple brush of her pinky.

“What did I tell you?” she says as her hand closes round the edge of the foul relic, “about hiding behind masks?” He is too surprised to react as she pulls back, tearing herself and her presence from him. Taking the mask with her.

She sees his shocked face form the shape of her name as the bond closes, his eyes and the never-ending stars in his windows fading from view. She shouts across the stuttering connection.

“That ends now, _Ben_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE Feisty Rey. You take that creepy thing, girl. Things are definitely moving for these too and I'm quite proud of Rey fro facing up to some stuff this chapter. 
> 
> Also side note- I know Poe comes off as a bit of a dick here. Rest assured I still love him, but I do think he would act in the interests of his career in the Resistance, at least up to a point. Before it was Rey's 'found family' it was Poe's actual family so, you know. 
> 
> Kudos and comments make me mega happy. As always come say hi if you like it at my [Tumblr](%E2%80%9Dsarcasticleaderrey.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Star Wars fic and my first anything fic since FF.net years ago- what can I say a scaneger and space prince have captured my soul. Hope you like it and please forgive any universe errors! 
> 
> Comments and kudos would be lovely if you enjoy.
> 
> The fic takes its title from Love in the Dark by Adele. Find me on Tumblr at SarcasticLeaderRey :)


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